CABPRO Report

Red Waters

By Marc Cuniberti
 
In my humble opinion, there are a handful of politicians in Washington I deem as downright dangerous to the Constitution and the freedoms of our country and one of those is Maxine Waters, self professed liberal and elected Democrat representing  the 35th Congressional District of California.
 
Sworn in way back in 1991 and in office for more then 2 decades through 11 terms, she epitomizes what’s wrong with America and the wrong direction it is headed because of misguided agendas from politicians like her.
 
One needs only to listen to her September 12, 2009 confrontation with a Shell Oil Executive available on UTUBE (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0BdKkEKTrs) where she lets slip her real agenda for America by saying “this liberal would be about socializing..(stops herself and babbles for a minute) then says “having government run your companies”.
 
Ms. Waters characterizes our industry as “your companies” in the video and that alone should tell you something about her view of the world.
 
She fails to comprehend many things obviously, but calling our great industry “your companies” polarizes the backbone of America (the worker) against the entity that employs them. America’s companies are “our companies” which no doubt employ many of her constituents as well as supply jobs to thousands of Americans if not tens of thousands as well as meeting America’s much needed energy requirements.
 
Pitting her “final solution” against the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of free enterprise and private property, the precedent moves America ever closer to the very policies our forefathers fled and these same socialistic type polices have proven detrimental to all economies that have adopted them.
 
Has this “liberal” even read the Constitution?
 
Perhaps she has mistaken America for Russia, China, Venezuela or North Korea where nationalizing private enterprise for garnering their profits to further feed the government and its tyrants is acceptable.
 
It's no wonder she thinks private money is for the taking however. She receives a public paycheck and lavish pension which dwarfs any previous employment. This career politician has never run a business and did not work a career in the private sector, a common theme among those trying to tell us businessmen how to run our business.
 
It’s no wonder many of our politicians never worked in the public sector. Half-baked ideas never fly far when you have to make an honest living. In public office however, these “world improvers” discover the public teat then never look back. They continually set their sights on whose money (other then their own) they can “redistribute” next.
 
That there are many devoted but closet socialists in Washington comes as no surprise but what is surprising is that anyone takes them seriously considering our nation's background of fighting against this very same ideology in many wars and conflicts which came before.
 
According to them, our largest industries would have government padlocks, thousands of zombie government employees processing reams of government paperwork only to bring us gas and other products at 3 times the price and then skimming off whatever profits they do manage to make to feed government coffers and further their agenda of installing their view of the world on the rest of us.
 
If that’s not enough to make you lose your lunch, brace yourself. There is a distinct possibility that Rep. Maxine Waters will take over as the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) retires. Not that we’ll miss Barney much, he is just as clueless, but at least we haven’t seen a red star moment from Frank like we witness so often from others. We can only hope Ms. Waters and those like her stick their feet in their mouths once again, only this time it gets stuck there.
 
Permanently.
 
This article expresses the opinions of Marc Cuniberti. Mr. Cuniberti hosts “Money Matters” on KVMR FM 89.5 and 105.1 F on Thursdays at noon. He has been featured on NBC and ABC television and on a host of made for TV documentaries for his economic insights. His website is www.moneymanagementradio.com

County Government shutdown due to snow

By John Spencer

Recently, February 29th, the community was functioning properly, doing the things they do every day, only we were in the middle of a storm that brought expected snow to our area mid-day. Around 2:00 PM it was getting kind of dangerous up at the County offices and the County CEO decided to close the offices and send everyone home. Not unusual, general public safety was a big concern.

Meanwhile, at our only local Title Company, because it was the last day of the month, the title officers were putting the final touches on some 12 escrow closures set to record that day. This wasn’t unusual, it happens all the time; our County Recorder does this same thing every month and day for that matter. These kinds of recordings are income producing, growth, a benefit to the whole community. What goes into putting together and finishing an escrow represents a huge amount of work by realtors, escrow and title officers, lending institutions, and buyers and sellers. All of this work is culminated by the Title Company to the point they bring the recordable documents into the Recorder’s office and record the transaction. This operation is probably one of the more important operations the Recorder does. The final culmination has a closure sheet where a whole host of numbers have been calculated to the penny for that moment in time. Everyone is in agreement, funds are set to be wired, people are ready to exchange house keys, and the paperwork has to record that day or everything does not work. If it is the last day of the month, it really has to record that day. If it does not record that day (and goes into the next month) everything has to be refigured, and you may have to go back to everyone to get re-approval. Re-approval may mean you can’t even do the deal, to say nothing about extra fees the bank will charge, losing a lock on your loan, penalties, and a recalculation on property taxes. When the County shut down the operation, some 12 escrows could not record. Big, big problem.

So who cares?

California Split?

By CABPRO Staff

From time to time the idea of splitting California into two or more states is floated out. This is precipitated by the sheer size and population of our state and its wide diversity of cultures and geography, as well as its problems.

There was discussion about California’s boundaries at the time of the founding of the state in 1849-50, just before the time of the Civil War, on up to as recently as last year when a Riverside County Supervisor again proposed dividing the state into two.

(www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/government/riverside-county-supervisor-proposes-splitting-california-into-2-states-487239.html )

A useful discussion of how states get split up, written by Michael Warnken at California Political Review, may be found at www.capoliticalreview.com/?s=splitting+california

Sometimes a proposal is for our state to become two separate states, as discussed here:

www.redstate.com/nickottens/2011/07/12/splitting-california-in-half/

while for others, three is the magic number, as described here:

www.3cals.blogspot.com .

For a proposal to join up parts of northern California with southern Oregon to form a new state called Jefferson State go here: www.jeffersonstate.com

Perhaps California was just too big and beautiful to begin with for its own good!

Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?

"The Question In This Election Is Not 'Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?' We Know The Answer To That. The Real Question Is, 'Will This Country Be Better Off Four Years From Now?'" (Senator Barack Obama, Remarks At A Campaign Event, Sarasota, FL, 10/30/08)

OBAMA SAID THE QUESTION WAS WHETHER THE COUNTY WOULD BE BETTER OFF FOUR YEARS FROM NOW. THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES:

14,241,059 Increase In Americans Receiving Food Stamps Since January 2009

2,730,000 Increase In Americans Unemployed For At Least 27 Weeks Since Obama Took Office.

1,004,000 Decrease In Construction Jobs Since Obama Took Office.

$15,316.70 Increase In Each Citizen's Share Of The National Debt Since Obama Took Office.

894,000 Decrease In Construction Jobs Since Stimulus Was Passed.

864,000 Decrease In Jobs Since Obama Took Office.

757,000 Increase In Unemployed Workers Since Obama Took Office.

603,000 Decrease In Manufacturing Jobs Since Obama Took Office.

557,000 Increase In Marginally Attached Workers Since Stimulus Was Passed.

495,000 Decrease In Manufacturing Jobs Since Stimulus Was Passed.

458,000 Increase In Marginally Attached Workers Since Obama Took Office.

274,000 Decrease In Private Sector Jobs Since Obama Took Office.

63,000 Increase In People Working Part Time For Economic Reasons Since Obama Took Office.

103.5% Increase In Price Per Gallon Of Regular Gas Since Obama Took Office.

50.1% Increase In American Households Receiving Food Stamps Since January 2009. 

20.2 Increase In Average Weeks Unemployed Since Obama Took Office.

15.9% Increase In Americans Living In Poverty Since Obama Took Office.

3.1% Percentage Point Increase Of Youth Unemployment Rate (16-19) Since Obama Took Office.

$1.911 Increase In Price Per Gallon Of Regular Gas Since Obama Took Office.

1.4% Percentage Point Increase In African American Unemployment Since Obama Took Office.

0.7% Percentage Point Increase In Hispanic Unemployment Since Obama Took Office.

0.7% Percentage Point Increase In U-6 Real Unemployment Rate Since Obama Took Office.

0.5% Percentage Point Increase In Unemployment Rate Since Obama Took Office.

(Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics 3/9/12; AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report, Accessed 3/9/12; U.S. Census Bureau, Accessed 3/9/12; Department Of Agriculture, Accessed 3/9/12)

Have The Politicians Fund Entitlements

By Martin Light

During this election year Governor Jerry Brown, President Obama and their left wing socialist progressive supporters are demanding more “Entitlements” for their voter base. Maybe we can help.

Most of us wouldn’t mind how many or what kind of entitlement programs our politicians implemented if we weren’t expected and ultimately forced to pay for the ones we don’t want and  won’t benefit from.

One thought is to let state, congressional and presidential candidates campaign for all the social and corporate welfare programs they like. But instead of allowing the state and federal governments to appropriate our income to pay for a seemingly endless number of special interest entitlements, we should expect these candidates to bankroll their own programs. If a candidate really cares so much about his constituents that he’s  willing to spend other people’s money on funding special interest programs, he/she should be willing to spend his/her own money once elected on helping them. Past practice says that despite their overwhelming altruistic tendencies and allegiance to the less fortunate, most, if not all politicians, would not personally fund the entitlement programs they promoted that got them elected. Funny thing and I wonder why?

In addition, we could expect the people who vote for special interest entitlement programs to also fund them. The politicians who appeal to the most voters will win and, more importantly, likewise will only be able to make good on the programs they’ve been sent to office to enact. In many respects the politicians will be forced to implement the most worthy of the entitlement programs but also begin operating like a private business. If they exhaust program funding due to their own incompetence, careless decisions or cronyism they’ll either have to abandon their programs or appeal to their supporters for additional  sponsorship.

Isn’t it way past time that consideration be given to controlling government support of special interest entitlement programs from taxes we are forced to pay and from which we rarely see any personal benefit for ourselves? Too often it is easier to be charitable with other people’s money i.e., our tax money. Have the politicians pony up some of their own cash along with some of that from their voter base and we’ll see funding stop going to worthless projects that show little or no return on investment.

Martin Light was CABPRO's Executive Director from 2008 to 2011and has returned to blogging on his Light on Nevada County (lightonnevadacounty.blogspot.com/) which you are welcome to visit for more perspectives on local, state and national issues.

The View From Andy’s Desk - Navigating CEQA

By Andy R. Cassano, Nevada City Engineering

CEQA stands for the California Environmental Quality Act. The law is the single most important guardian of meaningful environmental protection. The law is also the single most discouraging aspect to private and public projects in California.

So we help our private and public sector clients navigate this law in the most efficient way possible. I think of CEQA as the “look before you leap law,” requiring decision makers implementing new projects to think things through before they hurry into new construction projects of any kind. Thought must be given to what kind of environmental damage could occur and mitigation steps must be identified to avoid or minimize potential impacts.

To local governments, CEQA is an important tool, giving them the authority, responsibility, and tools to avoid project impacts or even to turn down projects where they believe that the adverse impacts of a project cannot be mitigated or offset to reasonable levels.

CEQA requires a very regimented schedule of events with mandatory components. It’s important to our clients that these steps be completed appropriately and in a timely manner. There are specific limitations on the nature and scope of legal mitigation measures applied to a project, including:

1. Mitigations must be related to a physical  impact. Mitigation is not required for purely socio-economic impacts.

2. Mitigation measures should be effective in reducing the actual impact of the project.

3. Mitigation measures should be within the controlling agency’s express or implied authority.

4. Mitigation measures must be reasonably connected to the potential impact of the project, containing what the courts have called “essential nexus.”

5. Mitigation measures must be roughly  proportional to the magnitude of the impact.

6. Mitigation measures must not be prohibited by any existing statute.

Down but Not Out

By Barry Schoenborn

My company, Willow Valley Press, isn’t “too big to fail.” We fall more into the category of “too small to succeed.” Yet, despite the Great Recession, and despite dramatic changes in the publishing industry, we have succeeded. We’re still in business, and poised to do better as the economy gets better.

I sometimes marvel at our endurance. This little company started in Nevada County in 1988 as  Willow Valley Software. To this day, we still operate WVS – the Technical Writing Company to do technical documentation. However, big American corporations have determined that our brothers and sisters in India can do a better job than we can in writing manuals in American English! So our tech writing business has been reduced. Well, maybe the corps figure the Indians need the money more than we do.

For those of you who (like me) were born in the Stone Age, you may remember John Cameron Swayze strapping a Timex watch to the propeller of an outboard motor and revving her up. He’d say “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Sometimes I feel like that watch.

A key point is that Willow Valley Press (WVP) is different from WVS. We publish books, and so we’re not beholden to cost accountants of corporate clients. We publish what the public wants. We are beholden to the marketplace, which is just fine with me.

We follow a few basic principles. You might think they apply only to micro-publishers, but they apply to most small businesses. At WVP, we have practices that can apply to any local manufacturer or retailer. Let me share them with you.

• Make or sell what people want to buy. We publish books that people are interested in reading. So they buy. This is so simple. I wish some local retailers would grasp this. Granted, people are price-sensitive, but an appealing product and the “in-person” buying experience are usually worth the money to the customer.

• Don’t make or sell junk. Don’t try it. China will kill you on manufacturing junk. The    Internet will kill you on selling junk. At WVP, we publish quality books, mainly “Greatest Generation” stories.

• Provide outstanding customer service. Local retailers sometimes don’t get this, to the point where critical letters appear in The Union! But it’s easy. At WVP, we respond promptly to every query and we fulfill orders fast.

• Use the Internet. For us, it’s a primary tool. Websites and Facebook are our friends. Locally, even restaurants should have a website. Note well: we did a website for a local Chinese  restaurant, and that was a giant boost for them.

• Spend your money on your employees.  Local manufacturers sometimes don’t get this. If you create “intellectual property,” as we do, plan on paying good money to the intellects who do the work. They are your “engine.” Since most of our talent is local to Nevada County, our salary dollars help mortgages to get paid and families to eat out at restaurants.

• Sell global, spend local. In the Good Ole Days of technical documentation, we made a lot of money from Hewlett-Packard Company, Roseville. But the staff spent the money locally. In the Good New Days of publishing, we use Amazon and Barnes & Noble to sell our books everywhere, but, again, we spend the money locally.

• Keep your sense of humor. People are sometimes outrageous. The government and big companies are often brutal. Not a day goes by where I don’t need to laugh at something or somebody. That includes laughing at myself.

Don’t forget the famous Horatio Alger theme: “Strive and Succeed.” It sounds really old hat, but I believe that the principles of hard work and utter honesty will get you through hard times.

Barry Schoenborn is the President of Willow Valley Press in Nevada City. He published “Dandelion Through the Crack,” by Kiyo Sato, which won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. He’s also the author of “Technical Math for Dummies” and “Medical Dosage Calculations for Dummies.”

If AB 1678 passes, food trucks won’t be able to vend in the red areas on this map of Sacramento. In fact, they’ll be banned from many California cities.

HERE is the articlen the Sacramento Bee.  We have lunatics running the asylum. Bill Manning, democrat nut from Carmel is the author.  hen we read this we could not stop laughing but unfortunately this nut from Carmel is serious.  If anyone had any doubts about the lefts desire for a total nanny state, this should clear things up.  We say the biggest threat to the kids in our schools are these leftwing nannies.  Let us recommend the orange circles on the map be "democrat legislator free zones".  Then the state's children would really be safer.

Good luck on the parks closure but the anger is misdirected

According to the Union newspaper this morning a gaggle of people, many children included, will descend on the Capitol in Sacramento to present a petition with 10,000 signatures.  These people will also voice their displeasure in the closing of the two parks here in Nevada County.  We say "good luck".  If you all are successful in changing the outcome, more power to you.

We see the problem and the solution a bit different but desire the same outcome.  The question should be, "how can a bunch of democrats controlling our state (for fifty years) be so incompetent to allow a $29 million segment out of a $90 billion budget to happen?"  We shake our heads in amazement.  What we have come to understand in our politics in California is this, it makes no sense.  If the democrats can't find 1/3 of 1% within the budget they have control of, then our state is toast.

Parks, cops, firemen, libraries and other high visibility items are the things the politicians use to raise the "fear".  If we don't give these scofflaws more money, they will cut out the things we all like, that is always their strategy and it always works.  The people are hosed over and over again and the left running our state loves it.  We think these men and women sit in a room, smoking their cigars and chuckling about the knuckleheads we all are.  How they get away with the "fear" factor once again. 

What we don't understand is why the state has added so many "parks" and other government owned lands and then cuts the funding to allow the people to use them?  Is this not the best exemples of the dysfunction Sacramento has become?  Of course it is.  Yet year after year these people place more lands into the public domain and tell us how important they are for the "people" to enjoy and save for future generations.  Give us a break!

These Sacramento politicians continuously pass laws to force private property owners to do their bidding.  We have so many hoops to pass through to do anything with our own private property and they force us all to pay for the privilege of being regulated.  Look at General Plans, zoning ordinances, fees for a parcel spilt and even your property line fence heigth.  Check out the costs to Water boards, fire departments and now even the Calfire budget.  They are charging us all in the rural areas to fight fires yet leave the urban folks alone.  Those urban folks that come and enjoy our forests we get to pay to protect! One report states  "The new fee, if implemented as proposed, could raise $50 million in FY2011/12 and as much as $200 million annually thereafter, easing the strain on the state's general fund, although the general fund would still provide the majority of money for firefighting."

The fire fee alone would be sufficient many times over to pay for the parks wouldn't it?  Yet, in order to free up money to buy off their constituents in the urban areas, the democrats in Sacramento come after our pocketbooks.  Fee for service, what service?  It seems to us the passage of Prop 26 in November 2010 means nothing to these people, including the Governor.  They don't care what the people voted on the fees and tax issue, they will shove another one down the throats of the people.

This is what California has come to.  Our democrat controlled legislature locks up lands for parks and then overspends elsewhere and threatens to shut them all down.  They are unfit to run the place in  our opinion.  If they can't even find $29 million dollars in a 90 billion dollar budget to keep the very parks they are in charge ofopen?  They should all, well at least the democrats, resign and let people who can live up to our Constitution take their place.  They are a embarrassment that even the Greeks can mock.

I seem to make those liberals steam up, what a hoot!

Ever since I started paying attention to politics about the year 1978 or so, I have generated a cadre of leftwing critics.  I have been a fairly outspoken fellow over they years since it appears the mute don't accomplish much.  This personality trait was probably a DNA issue from my father's father.  He was a man who had no use for silence when he saw something wrong in the body politic.  He had an opinion on just about every politician and government program.  Growing up at the Juvinall compound on Highland Drive I became accustomed to his views and his style. Grandpa was a WW1 vet who served in France.

When I did jump into local politics in 1978, the "no-growth" people were trying to limit building permits to 100 per year for the county and had qualified two ballot initiatives to accomplish their aims.  I, along with many other locals came together to fight this and we were victorious by a huge margin.  What I learned then was the world belongs to those that show up, the left will attack you relentlessly (to keep you from showing up), they will lie and make up stories about you and will pick on your kids.  They also try to run you out of town even though it is the town you were born and raised in.  The battle between the newcomers and the oldtimers was beginning. (even though we natives welcomed them)

After running twice and winning for the the office of County Supervisor, I can tell you the left just can't help themselves when it comes to lying about those they dislike.  My position has always been a Constitutional, Bill of Rights kind of position, presently mirrored by the issues the Tea Party espouses.  I don't belong to their organization but they sure have a handle on what is right and wrong with the government.  I found that over the years, the left is always there, they never give up their desire to control.  They are very patient and we have seen the results of there dreams in our lives.

They have grown the government so much that every American in some way is now a lawbreaker.  There is a complex set of rules, modified and added to every year by do-gooders or busybodies in our government that is is almost impossible to do anything without their permission. And you have to pay a fee for that permission.  I have tried over the years to alert the folks to this growing monster of government and its regulations but those on the left knew they could accomplish their wishes with the old "boiling a frog" strategy.  They have done their job so well the country and our once great state has been brought to the brink of the apocalypse.

One small example of the changs the kids under the dome in Sacramento had to do with volunteer fire departments.  Nevada County had a number of districts manned by men and some women, who wanted to help their neighbors by being there to fight a fire or provide emergency help when someone had a incident.  In the mid 80's the state started changing the requirements and made these volunteers start getting more and more professional training.  That grew and grew (mainly through the demise of the "good Samaritan" laws, to become  a feat impossible for a carpenter or a schoolteacher to meet.  So, the state has over time gone to paid members and the once energetic people who helped their neighbors has been diminished to almost nothing.  Budgets grew to pay the firefighters and the EMT's and paramedics and the training requirements have been so stringent no volunteer can meet them.  We now have major budget issues in that part of our county life.

That is one example and there are thousands.  All cost money and all diminish personal freedoms in some way.  I usually spoke up and tried to alert people to these problems I could see coming down the pike.  Most of the time the powers that be would not listen and over time I was sad to see I was right in my predictions.  Of course during those times people that took a position against some of these things were branded as "that busy body, loudmouth, activists or right-wing extremist".  The critics always try to marginalize those who disagree when it comes from the right.  The press was usually a willing critic as well and we can see that today in their love of Obama.

Well, because I was not a wallflower I did become a constant target of these leftwing carpers.  They even created a play and had me as a character of evil when they ran it at the Nevada Theater twenty years ago.  When I created CABPRO in 1993 the local press editor had a personal problem with me and made my attempts to make CABPRO something good into something bad.  I shook my head that a organization created t keep government overreach in check would be viewed by the very institution in our First Amendment that was supposed to actually do it.  All because f a personal dislike.  I learned a lot.

Today I still have some carpers but they are like little flies you have to shoo away.  Some even draw cartoons of me, I am honored.  Some write lengthy articles about how they want me to be  and how I am supposed to act and what I should do and believe.  They are the true busybodies of the planet.  I was taught early on that people are who they are and probably won't change much, even though the left in this case wants them to change.  I say to them,look in the mirror if you dare, get your mind right, your weight down and take a nice pill, then maybe I and folks like me will listen.  Well, maybe not.

Now in 2012, I am still dealing with the carpers and it is usually becasue they are simply jealous.  I just can't understand how a warm and fuzzy person like me, a fellow who pets animals and loves my little grankids, could be so misinterpeted by these liberals.  Of course that is sarcasm, but it makes the point that no matter how well intentioned a person on the right is the left will attack and make itr personal.  I am a fact seeker and when I am attacked I ususally fight back with the facts.  The left fights with emotions.  It is the classic struggle between the sides and I am right there in the thick of it.  More to come.